9/11 could have been stopped in San DiegoFormer FBI agent Mark Rossini, who was assigned to the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, said CIA officials blocked the memo to the FBI because the agency was complicit with …
November 12, 2023
Moss Gropen pens City Lights and cover stories for the Reader.
Articles by Moss Gropen
9/11 bad guys hung out in San Diego
Not so innocent off trail in Cuyamaca
Citizen pot bustI thought about the spring day my two hiking buddies and I were off-trail, crashing through dense thickets of tangled brush. It was growing dark, and the three of us had gotten separated. …
October 29, 2023
South Bay gated community may not be safest place to avoid danger
The Chula Vista kidnapping of Eddy Tostado by Arellano cartelAt 3:39 a.m. on January 7, 2007, Columbia Street was almost deserted. Little Italy had been plagued with car burglaries — “It got where you couldn’t …
October 22, 2023
San Diego's coinshooters, prospectors, relic hunters
San Diego treasure hunters, not as nerdy as you think.“Start over there, where the sand is shiny.” For wet-sand hunting, Russ recommends the area of the beach kept perpetually wet by the tide, so that’s …
October 14, 2023
Mira Mesa has its critics
San Diego's most wretched neighborhoodIt is a bright, sunny Saturday afternoon in April and a small crowd has gathered in the Mira Mesa shopping center mall, the hub of a community that is as far …
September 17, 2023
No more honky-tonks in Poway
Poway – why the rodeo still does well It’s rodeo time: seven seconds of hell on an angry bull. That’s what many San Diegans picture when they think of Poway. But times have changed in …
August 13, 2023
Julian wants to put out its own fires
Are the volunteers getting hosed? Nicio Aguilera is blunt: “Nobody up here trusts the county. We don’t trust them, we don’t like them.” Aguilera, who spent 15 years fighting fires in Philadelphia and another 15 …
May 15, 2023
Off-duty cop kills beer thief at Santee Vons
Steal Beer And Die The bloodstains have long since faded, courtesy of Scram, sun, and time. More than a decade ago, in the parking lot of a Vons in Santee, Christopher St. Louis, 18, lost …
May 13, 2023
Scripps Ranch seems so peaceful
San Diego’s secret missile-testing sites While hardly Death Valley, Scripps is hot in August, with any errant ocean breezes conditioned by their journey over industrial parks and tract homes on the intervening mesas. And no …
January 23, 2023